


only time is ours

by thistidalwave



Category: Check Please! (Webcomic)
Genre: Angst, Anxiety Disorder, Dubious Consent, M/M, Pre-Canon, Sad Jack Zimmermann, Substance Abuse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-30
Updated: 2014-12-30
Packaged: 2018-03-04 08:39:42
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,020
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3061268
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thistidalwave/pseuds/thistidalwave
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>Jack always feels like he’s running. Running to catch up. Running to get ahead. Lungs burning. Legs about to give out. Falling behind, behind, behind. Coming in dead last, even when he hits the finish line before anyone else. </i>
</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>Jack struggles through his years in the QMJHL, anxiety and expectations on his shoulders and Kent Parson at his side.</p>
            </blockquote>





	only time is ours

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this because I really, really love Kent Parson. I have no excuse for it. It will probably make you hate him. I have no excuse for that, either.
> 
> Thanks to the ever-amazing [Lily](http://archiveofourown.org/users/blamefincham) for the help and reassurance. She should not be blamed for any pain you experience. 
> 
> I also made a [fanmix](http://8tracks.com/thistidalwave/only-time-is-ours) for this.
> 
>  **Warnings** for anxiety/panic attack, substance abuse (alcohol/prescription medication), dubious consent, and abusive behaviour. If you want details about any of this before reading, please don't hesitate to [message me](http://thistidalwave.tumblr.com/ask).

“oh, hey, i wasn't listening.  
i was stung by all of us, the blind leading out the bored.  
and as per usual,  
you were skipping and laughing eyes at the bedroom door.

‘don't take it so seriously, no.  
only time is ours, the rest we'll just wait and see.’  
maybe you're right, babe, maybe.”  
— Ben Howard, “I Forget Where We Were”

 

 

The sky is already the blue-grey of just before dawn, so Jack is awake to hear the tiny plinking sounds of pebbles hitting his window. When he opens it and leans out, Parse is smiling up at him from the backyard.

“Jack!” he whisper-shouts. “Come jogging with me!” He’s already jogging in one place. Jack could just keep leaning out this window and watching, and that would be company enough. It occurs to him that he’d never told Parse his billet family’s address.

He holds up a finger to indicate he’ll be out in a minute, though, and ducks back inside. He puts on running clothes and shoves his phone into his pocket in case someone wakes up before he gets back and wonders where he is. Parse could have texted him to come down, but Parse treats everything like a fairy tale. Jack doesn’t understand it.

His skin is itching. He takes his anxiety meds and chases them with tap water that tastes like metal in his mouth. 

Parse is leaning against the porch railing when Jack lets himself out of the house. Jack lets his eyes skim over the way Parse’s shirt clings to his torso, then turns to lock the door behind him. “Ready to rumble?” Parse asks. 

Jack shrugs. He gave up on feeling ready for things ages ago. 

“Race ya to the end of the street,” Parse says, and he’s off, Jack on his heels.

-

Jack always feels like he’s running. Running to catch up. Running to get ahead. Lungs burning. Legs about to give out. Falling behind, behind, behind. Coming in dead last, even when he hits the finish line before anyone else. 

His dad had called and congratulated him after he scored his first game winner in the junior league. Bad Bob had called and told him he could do better without saying a single word. Jack had turned the water in the shower as hot as it would go and thought _good, better, best, never let it rest._

(Kent Parson had hugged him on the ice and yelled “Lucky shot, man!” in his ear. That was no big deal. Then Kent Parson had waited for him to exit the locker room after the game, long after everyone else had left, and said they should go for ice cream. He hadn’t waited for Jack to respond, just walked off like he expected Jack to follow. Jack did. It was probably a big deal, or at least the start of one, but Jack’s skin was still scrubbed pink and he could still taste fear in his mouth, and nothing seemed like much of anything.)

-

Parse lounges in one of the kitchen chairs like he belongs there, legs stretched out and crossed in front of him. Jack doesn’t think he’s ever seen Parse sit somewhere; he’s always lounging. He’d even lounged in the car on the way home from school. He’d fiddled with the radio, too, changing stations every thirty seconds. Jack hates the radio, but he’d sat in silence, too self-conscious to tell Parse to knock it off. He’s considering it penance for being too polite to tell Parse no when he’d asked if Jack would be able to drive him to the game later, and oh, wouldn’t it just be easier if he went home with Jack, too? Not that it’s a _problem_ , really. Jack just likes to avoid awkward small-talk situations. 

Jack opens the fridge. “You want anything?” he asks, automatically polite once again. 

“Dunno,” Parse says. “What are you having?” 

“Peanut butter and jam sandwich,” Jack says, showing Parse the jam jar. 

Parse looks thoughtful. “What kind of milk do you have?” 

Jack has to check. “One percent.”

“I’ll have that,” Parse decides. “I’ll get it. You make your sandwich.”

Jack shuffles to the side so Parse can get at the fridge. He starts spreading peanut butter on a slice of bread. He points to the correct cupboard for glasses when Parse looks questioning, then starts spreading jam on another slice of bread.

Parse finishes the glass of milk he poured for himself in record time. He rinses the empty glass and puts it in the sink like a respectable houseguest, then comes up behind Jack and hooks his chin over Jack’s shoulder like he’s not a houseguest at all. He sways a little, up on his toes as he must be, and balances himself with a hand on Jack’s waist. Jack stands still as a statue and breathes just as much. 

“On second thought,” Parse says, his breath warm against Jack’s cheek, “you look like you’re good at that. Make me one?” 

Jack nods. Parse doesn’t move the entire time Jack is assembling him a sandwich, so Jack doesn’t either. 

“Cut the crusts off?” Parse asks when Jack is pressing the two slices of bread together. 

“You want it cut in triangles, too?” Jack teases. 

He can feel Parse’s laugh through his entire body. “Sure, sugar.”

Jack cuts Parse’s sandwich into triangles and, after a moment, does the same to his own. He turns reluctantly, making Parse step back, and offers the crustless sandwich up. Parse smiles approvingly, lopsided and perfect, and Jack nearly drops both plates.

“Thanks, Zimms,” Parse says, taking his sandwich. Jack blinks, thrown by the nickname and the way it doesn’t make him want to crawl out of his skin, then shakes it off.

“No problem,” he mumbles. 

-

Parse leans against the doorway to the locker room, arms crossed. His hockey bag is slung over his shoulder, his gear stashed inside, but he still has his skates on. He fist bumps the last player out of the room, then smiles at Jack.

“Hey,” Jack says, glancing up at him, “you need a ride home? I’m almost ready to go.” 

“Nah,” Parse says. He waves a set of keys at Jack. “Put your skates back on, dude. I convinced Coach to give me the keys to the kingdom.” 

“How did you do that?” Jack asks. He’s already shoving his feet back into his skates.

Parse shrugs and comes to sit next to Jack. “Told him you needed to skate off some tension. And that we’d be very responsible and clean up after ourselves.” He puts on a gruff French accent. “‘Well, okay, but if I see any pylons or pucks left on that ice, Parson, there’ll be hell to pay.’” Parse rolls his eyes, and Jack laughs.

“I guess we won’t break out the pylons then, eh?” Jack says. 

“Nah, don’t even need pucks,” Parse says. “Suicides all the way, right?” 

“Sure, Parse, you could stand to tone that ass a little,” Jack says, raising his eyebrows suggestively.

Parse barks a laugh. “Please, I’ve got a Grade A hockey butt,” he says. He stands when Jack does and leans in close. “And don’t think I haven’t seen you checking it out.” Jack’s heart stops, excuses he’s not entirely sure he needs stuck in his throat, but Parse just grins at him and slaps Jack’s ass on his way out the door. Jack follows after a moment, adrenaline still pulsing through his veins.

The arena is dark, most of the lights that aren’t over the ice turned off, everyone else gone home. Jack has always loved the ice like this—no one in the bleachers, no bright lights flashing at him, no coach or teammates yelling: just him and the ice. And, today, Parse, who’s already skating the width of the rink and back. 

“Last one done three laps buys the other pizza?” Parse suggests when Jack joins him on the ice. 

Jack looks at him, trying to figure out what he’s playing at, and shrugs. “Does everything have to be a race for you?”

“Most things,” Parse says, indifferent. “Don’t tell me you’re scared, Zimms.”

Jack feels a thrill shoot through him. He snorts. “Scared? I don’t think so.”

“Well, then, let’s up the stakes. You win, I buy you pizza. I win… I’ll let you know what I get.” 

He’s got his trademark smirk on his face, the one that makes Jack’s fingertips tingle, and intrigue makes Jack nod. “Start at the centre line?” 

They line up, and Parse counts down from three in an overdramatic announcer’s voice. Once they’re skating, though, Parse is all business. Jack manages to stay in the lead for the first two laps, but Parse edges up and passes him on the third. Jack grits his teeth and skates harder.

Parse crosses the centre line barely a moment before Jack and immediately turns around, arms raised in victory, still gliding backward. “Suck on _that_ , motherfucker.” 

“What did you win?” Jack asks. Parse hits the boards at the end of the rink, and Jack stops abruptly in front of him, showering Parse’s legs with snow.

“This,” Parse says. He fists his hand in Jack’s t-shirt and reels him in, then pulls him down so their faces are close. Jack’s skates slide on the ice, threatening to leave him behind, and he steadies himself, bracing his hands on the glass behind Parse. They stay there for a moment, breathing each other’s air, and Jack isn’t even entirely sure who actually kisses who. 

It’s sloppy kissing, both of them too eager, and Jack suspects that Parse has about as much experience with making out as Jack does—the price of being perpetually married to the game. Parse licks into Jack’s mouth right away, and Jack lets him. Their teeth clack together at one point, but they laugh it off and go straight back to kissing. Jack feels more sure of himself and where he is in the world than he has since he got drafted to the juniors. Maybe even before that. 

-

They win the President’s Cup that season. Jack feels like he’s on top of the world for a few short days, success burning in his bones, and then it’s back to the grindstone.

They lose out on the Memorial Cup in the semi-finals. The team throws a consolation party for themselves, a concept Jack has never fully connected with. Why party to forget when you should be hiding your shame away and making plans to do better, _be_ better next time? The beer tastes like defeat and despair. Jack keeps drinking it anyway. He tells himself it’s because Kent keeps handing him new cans, but Kent had asked once and Jack had nodded, so that’s a lie.

Somewhere along the line, at some point—probably around the time they first neglected their second hotel room bed in favour of jerking each other off in the dark, hands clamped over each other’s mouth in an effort to stay quiet, laughter glinting in their eyes—Jack stopped thinking _Parse_ and started thinking _Kent_. He’d kind of surprised himself with it, really, rarely one to ignore a hockey nickname, but he figures if Kent gets to be the only one to call him Zimms, Jack can be afforded a similar privilege. 

Kent comes up to him and leans in so close that for a moment Jack thinks that Kent is going to kiss him in front of this entire room of their teammates. He freezes up, and Kent smirks and pulls away. “You’re looking sad over here,” he says. “Perk up, babe, it’s not so bad. We got this fuckin’ far, we’ll get ‘em next year.” 

Jack’s heart is hammering in his chest. He’s not sure if it’s because of how close Kent sat down next to him, or Kent calling him babe (at all, much less where people could _hear_ ), or the suggestion that this isn’t so bad when it feels like all his failures caught up to him, or just that he’s drunk, but he suddenly needs to get _out_. He jumps to his feet, grunts “Washroom,” at Kent, and books it before Kent can say anything.

Kent follows him anyway, and he starts talking to Jack through the closed bathroom door. Jack splashes cold water on his face and clings to the edge of the counter, letting the water drip off his face and trying to do the breathing exercises his therapist taught him. He can’t focus, though, not with Kent on the other side of the door.

“Zimms, come on. Open up, man. What the fuck is wrong with you? Stop being such a fucking downer and come back out here. It’s a party, dude.” He keeps on in the same vein while Jack clenches and unclenches his hands and wishes he had something to punch.

Kent’s not yelling, just talking in a disappointed tone, and that makes it even worse. Jack feels as if he’s personally offended not only Kent, but every single person out in that room, and possibly some other people as well. His anxiety keeps spiking, threatening to overpower him, but at least he can still breathe. He wishes he had his anxiety meds with him.

Kent falls silent. Jack thinks he’s gone, finally given up, and feels a flood of something like regret before Kent says, soft this time, “Jack, will you at least let me in?” 

Jack lets out a long, shaky breath and reaches for a towel to dry off his face. He hangs it back up and pulls open the door before he can lose his nerve. "What, can't a dude piss?" He tries to sound joking and carefree, and it falls terribly, terribly flat. 

Kent gives him a disparaging look. Jack wishes he could disappear entirely and stop fucking things up.

Kent puts his fingers on Jack’s chest and forces him to walk backward a couple steps so that Kent can close the door behind himself. "What's _wrong_ with you?" he demands. 

Jack's hands are trembling. He doesn't have the words to explain all the things that are wrong with him, and even if he did he doesn't think Kent actually cares. 

Kent sighs, long and put-upon, and then he's wrapping his arms around Jack, squeezing tightly. Jack hugs back cautiously. He can feel Kent's warm breath on his skin, his face tucked into Jack's neck like he's planning on making a home there. 

"I'm going to miss you," Jack blurts out.

Kent looks up at him. "What do you mean?"

"This summer," Jack says lamely. 

The corner of Kent’s mouth twitches up. "That's a while off," he says. He's right; they still have a bit more than a month of school to finish off before they go home. Jack wants to take it back, pretend he'd never said anything. "And it's only two months, Zimms."

"I know," Jack mumbles. He doesn't know what's wrong with him. He's well aware that their relationship isn't much more than furtive making out and sloppy handjobs and racing, always racing, things never to be talked about for too long or in too much light. He hadn't even really thought that he wanted much more, but here he is, having had not even a day with no short term hockey goals to concentrate on, thinking about missing Kent. 

"Is that what this nonsense was about?" Kent asks, raising one eyebrow. "Is that why you've been acting like a pussy?"

 _No_ , Jack thinks, and then _yes, maybe, I don't know, just please don't let go._

Kent lets go. Jack’s fingers close on nothing. His fingernails dig into his palms. 

"Better shape the fuck up," Kent says. Jack nods, and then Kent is gone, the bathroom door clicking shut again behind him. 

Jack keeps his anxiety medication on him all the time after that.

-

It’s the last full day of school before finals start, and Jack is sitting alone in the cafeteria at lunch time. He usually sits with a group of hockey players, but they’d all decided they were going off-campus for lunch, and there was talk of not bothering to come back for their afternoon classes. Jack has history after lunch, and even if it is the last day and they’re not going to be doing anything useful, Jack likes his history teacher. 

He has his eyes down, reading his textbook, when someone sits down across the table from him and puts a brochure on top of the page Jack was reading. Jack looks up at Kent questioningly. He’d thought Kent had went with the other guys—Jack doesn’t think either of them have been avoiding each other, but the lack of set hockey practices make it so they naturally spend less time together. Kent just smiles and nods at the brochure. Jack picks it up and looks at it.

“This is for a summer hockey camp,” Jack says.

“Yep,” Kent says. He’s taking up two chairs with his lounging, one arm and leg draped over the extra one, and he looks very pleased with himself. “It’s an entire month long.”

Jack stares at him. “You found this?” 

Kent nods. “Figured we could go, you and me.”

Jack flips open the brochure. It looks like a really good camp, actually, but Jack is barely paying attention to that. Kent _found_ this for them. He’d listened when Jack had said he’d miss him this summer. Maybe he’d even realized that he would miss Jack, too. 

Then he flips to the last page. “The deadline for registrations is way past,” he says, heart sinking.

“Jack,” Kent says, dropping his propped up leg and leaning forward as if to tell Jack a secret, “your dad is Bob Zimmermann.” 

“But—” Jack starts. He hates pulling the Bad Bob card to get things, but the way Kent is smiling at him, small and secret, makes him reconsider. “Right. Yes, okay. I’ll ask him.”

“Cool,” Kent says, leaning back again. Jack smiles.

-

Barely a few days into camp, Kent finds Jack during their free hour and drags him off into the trees at the edge of the camp. Jack asks where they’re going, but Kent doesn’t answer. 

They come out of the trees in a small clearing, and Kent turns and spreads his arms out, presenting it to Jack. “What do you think?”

“It’s… nice,” Jack says. _Quiet_ , he thinks, especially when compared to spending all day with yelling people, counsellors and coaches and countless teenage boys.

“Found it when we were supposed to be hiking,” Kent says. He flops down in the grass, legs stretched out and crossed in front of him, and pats the ground beside him. Jack sits. 

There are insects buzzing in the long grass around them. A gentle breeze makes the brown stalks of it sway back and forth. In the distance, leaves rustle and birds chirp. Jack closes his eyes and digs his fingers into the dirt, and when he opens them, Kent’s face is scarcely a centimetre away from his.

“What— “ Jack starts, but Kent kisses him. He tastes like Juicy Fruit, and his hair is hot from the sun when Jack puts his hand in it. It’s soft, too, beneath the sparing amounts of hair gel that pushes it back, and Jack remembers that his hands were just in the dirt. Kent bites Jack’s lower lip, and Jack makes a startled noise. He shoves Kent over so that he can press him into the ground. Maybe, he thinks wildly, if they kiss for long enough, they’ll both sink into the dirt, down down down, until they can’t breathe and this all will be over.

Jack stops kissing him. Kent blinks up at him with lazy grey eyes and smiles. His lips are red, and his hair is messy, and every inch of him seems dirty. He squeezes Jack’s arm, gently, like a question, and Jack turns his head to the side and spits the gum he hadn’t been chewing before into the grass.

Kent laughs. A bird chirrups. Jack leans down and kisses Kent again. 

-

Being with Kent feels like drowning, like breathing in ice cold water and letting it fill his lungs. 

It's an escape from the _go go go_ of his life, for a moment, a second, a blink of the eye. It's different entirely from the effect of his meds. The world is brighter around Kent, which seems like the sort of stupid romantic thing Kent would jokingly and yet oh-so-seriously say while Jack rolls his eyes, but Jack doesn't know how else he would describe it. 

Jack honestly can’t say, once camp is over and he’s back home, in the house with all the space he can’t remember ever feeling like he could fill, whether the crushing sensation in his chest is because he sees his dad every day or because he doesn’t see Kent at all. He goes running in the mornings at first, but it isn’t the same without the sound of Kent’s runners hitting the pavement beside him, so he stops. 

His mother fusses over him all day every day, complaining that she never gets to see him. Jack wants to say _and whose fault is that?_ , which is stupid because it’s certainly not hers, so he bites his tongue and says _I missed you, too,_ instead. She makes him an appointment with his psychiatrist and sits in the waiting room while Jack goes in and says he’s fine, mostly, he just gets a little stressed about things sometimes. The psychiatrist asks him if the medication is still helping, and Jack resolutely does not feel for the bottle in the pocket of the hoodie he shouldn’t be wearing in the dog days of summer when he says yes. He leaves with the slip of paper that renews his prescription held between two fingers, like something precious. 

Jack’s evenings are spent in the family room with his father talking at him about hockey, analyzing draft picks and prospects and strategies and all the things Jack lives and breathes every day, while Jack nods along and waits desperately for him to stand, clap Jack on the shoulder, and shuffle off to sleep.

He spends each night lying in his bed, staring at the high vaulted ceiling of his bedroom, trying to remember how to breathe. 

-

Jack shows up for the first practice of his last season in the Q with nervous adrenaline pulsing just below his skin. Kent shows up with a grin, as ever, and he pulls Jack into a bro hug, hands clasped in front of them, slapping each other on the back. For a moment, Jack’s anxiety turns to nothing but excitement, a season of possibility wide open in front of him. 

Then Kent pulls back and goes to put his gear on, and Jack realizes his hands are shaking. He slips into a bathroom stall, swallows one of his pills dry, and stands there until he can’t hear anyone in the locker room anymore. 

-

People keep telling Jack that he must be under so much pressure—his therapist, the school guidance counsellor, his coach, his billet family, his parents: all of them comment on it, and all of them tell him different ways he should be dealing with it. It’s his last year of high school, last year of junior hockey, last year before he becomes an adult. _How are you doing, Jack? What can I do to help you? Are you working hard?_

Question after question, and the answer is always the same. Jack shrugs, says, _I’m fine, I’m good. I’m working as hard as I can._

That opens up a whole new bundle of questions and suggestions, reassurances that he shouldn’t worry, he shouldn’t forget to have a bit of fun with what’s left of his freedom. Jack wonders what freedom they’re talking about. 

His dad calls when he’s driving himself and Kent to the arena for practice one day. Jack tries to insist he’s busy, but Bob won’t hear it, tells Jack then he just has to tell him about this chat he’d had with one of his old friends, and oh, he watched their last game on TV and Jack should really work on tightening up his line, have the coaches been drilling them hard enough? And on and on while Jack glares at traffic and resists throwing his phone through the windshield. 

They’re only five minutes from the arena when Bob finally hangs up. Jack tosses his phone into the cup holder and notices Kent looking at him. He wonders if Kent had been staring the entire time. 

“Heard all that, I guess,” Jack says. He tries to crack a smile and probably looks like he’s about to keel over at the wheel instead. 

Kent is silent for a moment, still looking at Jack. “You know,” he says, “you’re not in this alone.”

“What?” Jack asks, thrown.

“You’re not the only one who has to deal with all of this shit,” Kent clarifies. “I’m trying to make the NHL as well, you know.” 

“I know that,” Jack says, although privately he doesn’t think it’s the same. He knows that Kent has wonderful parents who have invested a lot of money and hard work in him and his hockey career, but neither of them are hockey legends. No one has expectations of Kent the way they do of Jack.

“Well, you don’t fucking act like it. You’re always acting all aloof, like no one could possibly understand you,” Kent says. He’s clearly angry, though he isn’t shouting. Jack kind of wishes he would. It would make this seem more real. He wonders if Kent’s been bottling this up, waiting for an opportune moment to hit Jack with it, because right after a call from his dad on the way to practice—that would certainly be the time for maximum impact. “But I get it, Jack. I understand you.”

“I know you do,” Jack says, and it’s true enough. If anyone does, it’s Kent. It’s just that Jack doesn’t think that anyone really can, and to him, used to seeing Kent lounging on things without a care in the world, Kent seems far removed from any kind of stress. Jack wants to pull over to talk about this, whatever _this_ is, but if he does that, they’ll be late. “I’m sorry,” he adds, because he thinks there must be something to apologize for.

“Don’t fuckin’ apologize,” Kent mutters. Jack bites back another sorry. Kent turns the radio on and the volume up. 

-

The parents of the team's goalie are out of town, and so, of course, he throws a party at his house. Kent convinces Jack to go, fluttering his eyelashes and insisting that _the entire team is going, and even you need to let loose. In fact, especially you_. Jack gives in fairly easily after he says that. 

It’s not exactly fun, not with the loud pop music that Jack doesn’t know the words to and the loud video games he doesn’t know how to play and the loud talking he doesn’t know how to participate in because it’s not about hockey, but there is alcohol. Jack sticks to Kent’s side and is rewarded with a constantly refilled drink for his troubles. By the time Kent drags him away from the crowds, he’s feeling pretty sloshed.

“What are you doing?” he asks, watching Kent fiddle with a doorknob, shake his head, and then do the same to a different door.

“Seeing which of these has a lock,” Kent says, waggling his eyebrows suggestively at Jack. Jack giggles at him. “Aha!” Kent declares at the fourth door, grabbing Jack’s hand and pulling him into the room. 

It’s someone’s bedroom, that much is obvious. It’s possibly the master bedroom, even, but Jack doesn’t have more than a few seconds to look around before Kent is kissing him and pushing him down on the bed. Jack is not objecting to this turn of events at all. He blows his bangs off his forehead and grins up at Kent. “Hi,” he says.

“Hi yourself,” Kent says back. "Come on, shirt off."

Kent's hands are hot on Jack's hips. Jack stretches his hands above his head and lets Kent pull his shirt off, then reaches for Kent's. The rest of Kent's bare skin is hot, too, and so is his mouth, and Jack feels like he's melting into him. 

Kent is handsy at the best of times, but tonight he's even more so. Gone is the long, lazy making out that Jack is used to, replaced by a more urgent kissing and the steady disappearance of their clothes. It's nothing out of the relatively ordinary, though, not until it doesn't slow down once they're naked. If anything, Kent gets more desperate. 

Jack tries to slow it down, but Kent ignores all his attempts. Jack reaches for his dick instead, thinking that maybe Kent wants to get this over with, but Kent seems as uninterested in that as one can when someone's hand is on their dick.

"Kent," Jack says, trying to pull away a bit, "what're you—"

Kent kisses him mid-sentence. Jack feels like he's been thrown into the deep end all of a sudden, a feeling that only intensifies when Kent drops packets of lube and a condom that he must’ve had in his pockets on the bed next to Jack. He jerks away from them like he's been burned. Kent's been hinting that he wants to go further than they've been lately, but Jack kept avoiding it, not sure he really wants to take that step. 

"C'mon," Kent says, soft in Jack's ear, heedless of both his obvious alarm and his apparent drunkenness. He threads his fingers into Jack's. "I want you."

"Like this?" Jack asks, referring to the whole situation, the stranger's bed, the party, the alcohol. 

Kent either doesn't take it that way or doesn't care. Jack doesn't want to think too hard about which, now or ever. "Just like this," he says. "You and me." 

Jack must seem unsure still, because Kent kisses him again. Jack can practically taste Kent's urgency on his tongue between his whispered assurances that he's going to make Jack feel so good. Kent is always like that, always in a hurry while Jack struggles to catch up. Jack kisses back and stops thinking. 

"Okay," Jack breathes after a while. Kent's fingers are already slick with lube, but he smirks like Jack has made his whole night anyway. "Okay."

-

“I feel like I never see you anymore,” Kent says. Jack stares into his locker and wonders how Kent can make that statement sound normal instead of absurd, because they see each other every day, or whiny, because it’s exactly what a clingy girlfriend would say. “Come over after school.”

Jack opens his mouth to protest—right after school is when he gets his homework done so that he doesn’t have to worry about it later—but Kent already has his number. “You can study at mine just as well as at the library,” he points out.

Against his better judgement, Jack agrees. 

He half-expects Kent to convince him to do something else once they’re there, but he just sits at his desk and pulls out his own work. “Make yourself comfortable,” he says, so Jack spreads his stuff out on Kent’s bed and settles in. 

He works through his math questions pretty steadily, but he keeps finding himself distracted by looking at Kent, tracing the slant of his shoulders with his eyes, and then he drifts off into thought and has to shake himself out of it. Kent’s bed is more comfortable than Jack remembers it being, and his house is warm, and the next thing he registers after he looks down at question eleven is waking up, face pressed into Kent’s neck and Kent’s arm around his shoulders, his fingers carefully carding through Jack’s hair. 

“Hey, sleepyhead,” Kent says when he notices that Jack is awake. “Staying for dinner?” 

All of Jack’s stuff is gone—put into his backpack, he assumes—replaced by Kent stretched out beside him. He feels like he should be panicking about unfinished work and time wasted, but his brain is fuzzy with sleep and he can’t be bothered. He tilts his chin up, a clear invitation to kiss him that Kent takes him up on immediately. 

“Is that a yes to dinner?” Kent asks when they break apart.

“Sure,” Jack says. He’d agree to anything that meant he could stay here, in this moment, for longer.

-

There are scouts at this game. They’re the first of many, for sure, but the first nonetheless. They’d known about them ahead of time, pulled aside by the coach so he could let them know, and Jack spots at least one in the bleachers during the national anthem. Kent nods toward the other one when they’re skating back to the bench, and Jack points out the one he’d spotted. Kent nods.

“Knock ‘em dead, Zimms,” Kent says when they meet up at the bench. They knock their helmets together, Kent’s hand on the back of Jack’s head.

“You, too,” Jack says. Kent salutes him, grinning.

Jack bites down on his mouthguard and turns to face the ice.

-

Time passes faster than Jack thinks it has any real right to. He thinks there must be weeks before any official sources will be really discussing the details of the draft in depth, but he checks his email one morning to find a message from his dad including only a link to an article on CBC. He reads all five pages of it and abruptly wants to undergo facial reconstruction and move to Australia. He’s pretty sure hockey doesn’t warrant rampant speculation from national news sources there. 

He replies to tell his dad thank you and tries to forget about the entire thing. He does a shit job of it; someone says “first draft” in class, obviously referring to their paper, but Jack nearly has a panic attack anyway. He has to ask to be excused from class so he can try to calm down in the bathroom, where he flips his pill bottle over and over and listens to the rattling of the capsules inside, secure in the knowledge that he could take one if he really needed to. It works, for once, but he walks past Kent in the hallway on the way to his next class, and when he checks his phone, Kent has texted him _Why are you so pale???_ Jack doesn’t respond.

The guys at practice are talking about the article, too. Jack feels like it’s following him around, and he’s pretty sure he’s not imagining the looks that are being thrown his way, either. He skates away from the group and prays that no one will try to question him about it. 

No one does, thankfully, and Jack almost thinks he’s going to get home scot free until Kent sits down next to him in the locker room. 

“Some article, huh?” Kent asks. He’s wiping off his skate blades and not looking at Jack. 

“Yeah,” Jack says, throat dry, wishing he could forget the way it had pitted him and Kent against each other. “Some article.”

-

Weeks later, Kent finds Jack sitting in the locker room, winding hockey tape around and around his stick, then peeling it off only to do it all over again. 

“Hey,” Kent says, “I’ve been looking for you.”

“You found me,” Jack mutters. He rips the end of the tape and presses it down, then shakes his head and peels it back up. He can feel Kent watching him like bugs crawling over his skin.

“Yeah,” Kent agrees. “Should’ve known you’d be here. Didn’t know you’d be sitting here wasting tape, though.”

Jack drops the tape he’s peeled off on the ground, where it settles in a curlicue amid the other discarded bits of tape. He starts putting a new layer on. 

“Come on, man, stop it,” Kent says. Jack doesn’t stop. “The season’s over, we just graduated from high school, there’s a few days until we have to get on a plane to Montreal—we’re riding high, dude. Let’s go get smashed and make out.” He nudges Jack in the side and grins. 

Jack feels like he’s going to be sick. He can’t imagine drinking for fun, to celebrate; he doesn’t remember how he ever did it before. Getting drunk has become a sad affair for him. Even amongst ecstatic teammates after they’ve won a game, Jack is more focused on pouring bitter liquid down his throat until he can’t feel anything. He stares at the tape, halfway through wrapping it, and then drops both it and the stick. Kent jumps, startled.

“What if I don’t go to the draft?” Jack says. He doesn’t look at Kent. 

Kent laughs. “What do you mean? You, Jack Zimmermann, number one prospect, not going to the draft? Don’t you want to put on your NHL jersey for the first time in front of millions of adoring fans?”

Kent means it as a good thing, but all Jack can picture is the dead-eye glares of multiple camera lenses pointed right at him, watching him take the mantle he’s been destined for since birth. He pictures the same camera lenses watching as he inevitably fails. Face on the cover of _Hockey News_ or not, Jack is never going to be good enough. He knows that. His father knows that. Even Kent knows that; it’s in his voice every time he says _race you._ It’s only a matter of time before the rest of the world finds out. 

“Don’t tell me you’re scared,” Kent says, still smiling. He nudges Jack again. 

Jack stares at him, remembering the last time Kent had said those words. How different he had seemed back then, with his bright eyes and knowing smirk and his ability to make Jack feel like he was fire, glorious and powerful. Now Jack just feels like he's on fire, burning up from the inside out. 

Kent takes Jack's hand. His skin is warm, just like it always is. Jack can feel it, distantly. It could be happening to someone else. He looks away. 

"Jack," Kent says. It sounds like an accusation. 

Jack pulls his hand away. "You should go," he says. _Go, before I drag you down with me._

“Why are you being like this?” Kent asks. He’s properly annoyed now. Jack keeps his gaze fixed on the floor.

“Just fucking go, will you? We’re not going to play together anymore, so we may as well just be done now.”

Kent stands. “Well, if that’s how you feel, fucking fine then. Fuck you, too, Zimms.” He kicks Jack’s stick. Jack watches it roll across the room, roll of tape tumbling along behind it. He feels like that roll of tape, stuck to an object in motion, no way to slow down or be left behind.

When he looks up and Kent is gone, he feels a surge of disappointment. He ignores it. This is what he wanted. Kent doesn’t need him. 

He gathers up his stuff, carefully disentangling the tape from his stick but not bothering to retape it, and heads out. He only has a few more days left in this city where he’s spent the majority of the past two years, and he intends to spend them all completely numb to the world. 

-

He makes it through the next few days. He makes it through saying goodbye to his billet family. He makes it onto the plane, where he isn’t sure whether he’s ignoring Kent or vice versa. He makes it through every time they accidentally brush against each other. He makes it to his hotel room in Montreal, and he even makes it through dinner in the hotel restaurant with his parents. 

He turns on the TV when he gets back to his room. It’s on the news channel, just in time for the sports segment, and Jack watches, mouth dry, while a hockey expert says all the things he’s heard before, like _Zimmermann_ and _top prospect_ and _Las Vegas Aces_ and _first overall pick,_ and then he says _teammate Kent Parson_ , flashing Kent’s picture on the screen, followed by a video clip of Kent and Jack celebrating a goal. Jack stops listening.

He doesn’t make it through that. He turns off the TV and throws up everything he’d just eaten in the toilet, and then he sits on the floor of the bathroom, struggling to breathe, hearing his heart beat too fast in his ears, and feeling like he might throw up again a thousand times over if it were possible. _Why can’t it all just stop,_ he thinks desperately. He fumbles his pill bottle out of his pocket and dumps the contents into his hand, stares at the way the pills jump in his trembling hand, and then takes them. 

_Stop stop stop_ , he thinks. The empty pill bottle bounces on the floor when he drops it. He can’t feel his fingers anymore, vaguely wonders if he ever could or if he was just making them up. He thinks about the sound of skates on ice in an empty arena, then the sound of a crowd after the home team scores. Both sounds hurt. He puts his hands over his ears and thinks, _STOP_.

And it does stop. At least for a moment. 

-  
-  
-

Kent calls once after everything. It’s before Jack gets outside communication privileges at rehab, and the nurse who tells Jack when he does says that Kent had declined to leave a message. Jack doesn’t know how Kent knew where he was, much less the phone number.

He thinks about calling him back. He even stands in front of the communal pay phone, turning quarters over in his hand, until one of the other patients clears her throat loudly, and Jack has to either do it or step aside. He steps aside.

He keeps the quarters in his pocket, even after he’s released.


End file.
